The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Of course,’ said Jack. ‘Everyone knows that.’

  ‘You obviously didn’t. Our killer is now inside, in an empty kitchen, but hears someone coming and so hides.’

  ‘The killer hides?’ said Jack. ‘Where does the killer hide?’

  ‘The killer hides in that cupboard,’ said Jill, pointing to an open cupboard. ‘It’s the broom cupboard. The door, as you see, is open and the brooms have all been pushed to one side. That’s not how I left them.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Jack. ‘The killer hides in the cupboard; what then?’

  ‘Madame Goose and your friend Eddie enter the kitchen from the hallway. They talk, Eddie helps himself to jam—’ Jill pointed to an open jam pot, surrounded by messy paw marks. ‘Whatever your friend says to Madame upsets her.’

  ‘How can you tell that?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Because Madame took down her brandy bottle from that shelf and poured herself a drink. She doesn’t drink before midnight unless she’s upset about something.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said Jack. ‘This is fair enough. Because you work here. You put the brooms in place, you know about the brandy. I couldn’t be expected to figure that stuff out. It’s not clever. It’s obvious to you.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Jill. ‘Then how about this? The killer burst out of the cupboard, struck down Madame Goose with a broom, picked up a kitchen knife and slit your partner’s throat.’

  ‘Whoa, stop,’ said Jack.

  ‘Broom,’ said Jill, pointing. ‘Knife on floor, sawdust on mat. And your killer is a woman, Jack.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A woman. She’s about five foot six in her exclusive high-heeled footwear and she wears pale pink lipstick. She smokes Sweet Lady brand cigarettes and favours Dark Love perfume.’

  ‘What?’ said Jack once more.

  ‘There’s the butt end of her cigarette in the broom cupboard. Her lipstick’s on it and the mark of her high-heeled boot. I could smell her perfume in the air when I came into the kitchen. As to her height, she swung Madame Goose’s body up and onto the table after she killed her, then she trussed her legs. A taller person would have tied them higher, further from the feet. She tied them as high as she could reach without climbing onto the table – there are no heel-marks on the table, I looked. She’s about my height. She’s very strong.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jack.

  ‘And she wears a feather bonnet. There’s a feather stuck in the door jamb of the cupboard.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jack, once again.

  ‘Now, my guess is,’ said Jill, ‘and here it’s only a guess, so correct me if I’m wrong, my guess is that if you are a sort-of-detective, you’re working on a case. Probably two cases. The two big cases that are on the go at the moment: namely, Humpty Dumpty and Boy Blue. Now I’m guessing once again here, but what if these two were linked to a woman, possibly in some romantic fashion. Revenge crimes, perhaps. A wronged lover. A wronged lover in a feathered hat.’

  Jack made groaning sounds.

  ‘My feelings then,’ said Jill, ‘would be that the killer was on to you and your friend. Followed you both here. Overheard what Eddie had to say to Madame Goose and what she in turn said to Eddie, then silenced the both of them. How do you think I’m doing?’

  Jack made further groaning sounds.

  ‘There’s only one thing that mystifies me.’

  ‘Go on then, what is it?’

  ‘It’s that,’ said Jill and she pointed to the mantelpiece. ‘What is that doing here?’

  Jack looked up at the mantelpiece.

  On it stood a hollow chocolate bunny.

  Jack drove once more through the streets of Toy City. This time Jill sat beside him. On her lap was the paper bag. The paper bag made Jack very sad.

  ‘I like this car very much,’ said Jill. ‘Is it yours?’

  ‘It’s borrowed,’ said Jack. ‘So where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going to find the killer. You want your friend back and I want my money. Such is the nature of our business arrangement. Why did you change your clothes? I don’t think much of that trenchcoat.’

  ‘My waistcoat lost its buttons,’ said Jack. ‘I can’t imagine how that happened, can you?’

  ‘Turn left here,’ said Jill.

  Jack turned left and then left again, and then Jack said ‘Oh Boy!’

  ‘We’re here,’ said Jill.

  ‘But why are we here?’

  ‘Because it’s the only connection we have. Feathered bonnets are this season’s fashion amongst the wealthy. It’s another “Bucolic Woodland” look. It’s a Boy Blue thing. And the heel marks on the cigarette butt, “Boots by Oh Boy!”.’

  ‘The police have all gone,’ said Jack. ‘Do you want to go inside?’

  ‘Obviously I do. I’d like to have a little look through Boy Blue’s client list. Perhaps we can identify this mystery woman.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Jack.

  They entered by the rear door of the premises. It was a simple enough business, involving, as it did, Jack sliding a piece of paper under the door, winkling the key out from the inside of the lock with a stick, or something, then pulling the key on the paper under the door.

  ‘As easy as,’ said Jack.

  Which made him sadder still.

  The two slipped into the silent building.

  ‘Let’s find the office,’ said Jill. ‘There’ll be a filing cabinet or something.’

  Jack followed Jill. They passed through the grand salon, where soft light fell upon the pink marble floor, highlighting a taped contour shape where the body of Boy Blue had lain.

  ‘How did he die?’ Jill asked. ‘You know, don’t you?’

  ‘It wasn’t nice,’ said Jack. ‘Although, I must admit, it was rather funny.’

  ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ said Jill.

  ‘Where have I heard that before?’

  Jill turned a scathing glance on Jack.

  ‘Upstairs it is,’ said Jack.

  Upstairs they came upon Boy Blue’s private office. The door was unlocked and they went inside. Moonlight cast pale shafts through tall windows, lighting upon expensive-looking items of furniture and a very grand desk indeed.

  Jill began rooting about in the drawers of the desk.

  Jack began touching things that he shouldn’t.

  ‘Don’t touch those things,’ said Jill.

  ‘Don’t tell me what to touch.’ Jack touched something else, which fell and broke.

  ‘Smench!’ it went on the floor.

  ‘Sounded expensive,’ said Jill.

  Jack joined her at the desk.

  ‘Switch the desk light on,’ said Jill.

  ‘Do you think we should? Someone might see the light.’

  ‘Not up here.’

  Jack switched on the desk light. ‘What have you found?’ he asked.

  Jill laid a large leather tome on the desktop and began to leaf through it. Vellum paper pages fell one upon another.

  ‘The Spring and Catch Society,’ said Jill. ‘It’s a secret organisation.’

  ‘Then how do you know about it?’

  ‘You’d be surprised the things men tell me.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Jack.

  ‘Well, it says here that Boy Blue was a member. And so are most of the old rich. These are rituals, see.’

  ‘They don’t make any sense.’ Jack peered at the page. The words meant nothing to him.

  ‘They’re in code.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a clue. What about the client list?’

  Jill pushed the tome aside and pulled another from the drawer. ‘Accounts,’ she said, ‘let’s have a look through this.’ She began leafing once more through paper.

  ‘Please get a move on,’ said Jack.

  ‘Be patient.’

  A sudden sound came to Jack’s ears. ‘What was that sudden sound?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. Don’t worry.’

  ‘But I heard something. Oh.’

 
Another sudden sound, this time accompanied by a lot of sudden movement, caused Jack to leap back in shock.

  There was now a lot of sudden light. Big and sudden and bright and all shining right at Jack.

  ‘Take him, officers!’ shouted a sudden voice.

  And all of a suddenness, big, blue, jolly, laughing figures were all over Jack. And Jack was pinned to the floor.

  From beneath much pressing weight Jack found himself staring fearfully into the perished rubber face of Chief Inspector Wellington Bellis.

  ‘Gotcha,’ said Chief Inspector Bellis. ‘They always return to the scene of the crime. I knew I was right. I just had to wait this time.’

  ‘Now hold on there.’ Jack struggled without success.

  ‘And you answer to the description of the suspect who broke into Humpty Dumpty’s, earlier today. Bill Winkie, private eye, I arrest you for murder.’

  ‘No, stop, this isn’t right.’

  ‘Take him to the station, officers,’ said Bellis. ‘And if he gives you any trouble, then …’

  ‘No,’ wailed Jack as laughing policemen dragged him to his feet. ‘You’ve got the wrong man. Tell him, Jill. Tell him.’

  But Jill was nowhere to be seen.

  13

  It is a fact, well known to those who know it well, that there is scarcely to be found anywhere a society which does not hold to some belief in a supreme being.

  A God.

  A Divine Creator.

  Toy City is no exception.

  In Toy City a number of different religions exist, each serving the spiritual needs of its particular followers. Four of the more interesting are The Church of Mechanology, The Daughters of the Unseeable Upness, Big Box Fella, He Come, and The Midnight Growlers.

  Followers of The Church of Mechanology are to be found exclusively amongst members of Toy City’s clockwork toy population: wind-up tin-plate barmen, firemen, taxi drivers and the like.

  These hold to the belief that the universe is a vast clockwork mechanism, the planets revolving about the sun by means of extendible rotary arms and the sun in turn connected to the galaxy by an ingenious crankshaft system, the entirety powered by an enormous clockwork motor, constantly maintained, oiled, and kept wound by The Universal Engineer.

  The Universal Engineer is pictured in religious icons as a large, jolly, red-faced fellow in greasy overalls and cap. He holds in one holy hand an oily rag and in the other, the Church’s Sacred Writ, known as The Manual.

  The Manual contains a series of laws and coda, but, as is often the case with Holy books, these laws and coda are penned in a pidgin dialect of unknown origin, which leaves them open to varied interpretation. An example of its text is Winding is not to facilitate in counter to the clockways direction for tuning the to.

  Followers of The Church of Mechanology consider themselves special and superior to all other varieties of toy, in that, being clockwork, they are in tune and at one with the Universe.

  A number of sub-sects, breakaway factions and splinter groups exist within The Church, with names such as The Cog-Wheel of Life, The Spring Almost Eternal and The Brotherhood of the Holy Oil. These are End Times Cults, which subscribe to the belief that, as individual clockwork toys enjoy only a finite existence due to the ravages of rust, corrosion, spring breakage and fluff in the works, so too does the Universe.

  Their prophets of doom foretell The Time of the Terrible Stillness, when the great mechanism that powers the Universe will grind to a halt, the planet will no longer turn upon its axis, the sun will no longer rise and even time itself will come to a standstill.

  If asked what The Universal Engineer will be doing at this momentous moment, they will politely explain that He will be cranking up a new Universe elsewhere, powered by something even greater than clockwork.

  If asked what this power could possibly be, they will like as not reply, ‘And there you have it! What power could be greater than clockwork?’

  The Daughters of the Unseeable Upness is a movement composed entirely of dolls – but only those dolls that have weighted eyes which automatically close when the doll’s head is tilted backwards. Such city-dwelling dolls can never see the sky, as their eyes shut when they lean backwards to look upwards. These dolls therefore believe that the sky is a sacred place that must not be seen, and that all who do see it risk instant damnation.

  As with clockwork toys, dolls enjoy only a limited existence before they eventually disintegrate, and as the onset of disintegration in dolls is inevitably marked by one of their eyes sticking open, followers of this religious persuasion invariably wear large, broad-brimmed, sanctified straw hats, or have their eyes glued in the half-shut position.

  According to the followers of Big Box Fella, He Come, as everything new, especially a toy, always comes in a box, then so too did the universe.

  The universe, they claim, is a construction kit, which God assembled with the aid of his little helpers. It is God’s toy. One day, they claim, God will tire of his toy, disassemble it and, being a well-brought-up God, put it back in its box.

  And that will be that for the universe.

  This particular religious belief system is predominant amongst Jack-in-the-boxes. They consider themselves to be special and blessed because they are the only toys that actually remain within their original boxes, the toy nearest to perfection being the toy that has never been taken out of its box.

  They believe that the universe is cubic, the shape of its original box, and so see themselves as microcosmic. The assembled universe consists of a number of boxes, one inside the other, the smallest of these containing the Jack himself. This exists within a larger cubic box, the city, which stands upon a cubic world, within a boxed solar system.

  Mortals, they claim, cannot travel between the separate boxes: only Big Box Fella can do that – he and his nameless evil twin.

  Big Box Fella is one of God’s little helpers. He and his brother were given the task of assembling the city, which was part of the Universe Kit. It was God’s intention that, once the city had been correctly constructed, Big Box Fella and his brother would tend to its upkeep and protect its also-to-be-assembled population (you have to remember that the universe is a very complicated construction kit).

  However, things did not go quite as planned, because Big Box Fella’s brother refused to follow the instructions, thereby committing the first ever act of evil. He improvised, with the result that certain things were incorrectly assembled, other things had parts left out and a city that would otherwise have been perfect was anything but.

  Big Box Fella cast his brother out of the city and attempted to put things right, but, out of spite, his brother had taken the instructions with him, and so the task was impossible.

  Some followers of this cult think that Big Box Fella is still in the city, tirelessly working to correct all his brother’s mistakes. Most, however, believe that he left the city and went in search of his evil twin, to retrieve the instructions, and that he will return one glorious day and make everything perfect.

  This, they hope, will happen before God tires of his toy universe, takes it all to pieces and puts it back in its box.

  The Midnight Growlers has been described as ‘a robust and rumbustious cult, more a drinking club than a religion, characterised by rowdy behaviour, the swearing of mighty oaths, the imbibing of strong liquors in prodigious quantities and the performance of naughtiness, for the sake of naughtiness alone’.

  For the greater part, the teddies of Toy City (The Midnight Growlers is a teddy bear cult) are law-abiding model citizens, who picnic and go walky-round-the-garden, behave with good grace and exhibit exemplary manners. That within this dutiful ursine population such a wayward faction as The Midnight Growlers should exist is a bit of a mystery.

  An investigative reporter from the Toy City press sought to infiltrate this cult. He donned an elaborate teddy costume and managed to pass himself off as a bear, and spoke at length to the Grand High Muck-a-muck of the cult, who referred to
himself as The Handsome One. The Handsome One explained many things to the reporter, but the reporter, who was finding it difficult to match The Handsome One drink for drink in the downtown bar where the meeting took place, became too drunk to remember most of them.

  The reporter did manage to recall that there was a great deal of convivial camaraderie within the cult, and The Handsome One constantly told him that he was ‘his bestest friend’.

  The reporter was eventually unmasked, however, when he fell from the barstool, on which he was attempting to balance upon his head, and passed out on the floor.

  In none of these religious movements, it is noteworthy to note, is the kindly loveable white-haired old toymaker worshipped as a God. Although he is feared and revered, those toys inclined towards religious belief consider him to be a doer of God’s work, but not actually a God in his own right.

  The Handsome One declared that he didn’t have any particular views on the subject of God, but that as far as the toymaker was concerned, he was ‘his bestest friend’.

  Then he too fell off his barstool.

  *

  At this present moment, however, The Handsome One and Grand High Muck-a-muck of The Midnight Growlers Cult (indeed, if the truth be told, the only member of The Midnight Growlers Cult) was a most unhappy bear.

  He lay downcast and best-friend-less upon the cold damp floor of a cold damp cell, and he dearly wanted a beer.

  The coldness and dampness of his circumstances did not concern him too much, but other things concerned him greatly.

  The nature of his being, being one.

  And this is not to say the cosmic nature of his being.

  It was the physical nature of his being that presently concerned him. And the nature of this being was, to say the very least, desperate.

  Eddie Bear raised himself upon a feeble paw and gazed down at the state of himself. It was a state to inspire great pity.

  Eddie was no longer a plump little bear. He was a scrawny bear, an emaciated bear, a bear deeply sunken in the stomach regions. A bear with only one serviceable leg.